First of all, for books that are entertainment (most fiction), how is this any different from series that are exclusive to Netflix? The answer given by the author is a non-answer, claiming you can "buy DVD's online". Yeah right, please show me where I can buy Tiger King on DVD? I didn't think so.
Second, for books that are more in line with libraries' missions to make information accessible for an educated citizenry, the original print and ebooks are still available, right? And if you have vision impairment, there are also methods for automated screenreading, since most books don't have audiobook versions.
So I don't really see any valid complaint here except "we want to sell things exclusive to other stores" which, yeah, and I'd like to have a billion dollars.
If you want to have the conversation that there should be laws breaking up creation and distribution and making exclusive distribution illegal, then go ahead, but that would shake up everything, a pretty radical change. But if you're not going to go there, then there's no reason why audiobooks shouldn't be exclusive while other things get to be.
If you want to have the conversation that there should be laws breaking up creation and distribution and making exclusive distribution illegal, then go ahead
There are laws for this in some industries in the United States.
Movie studios aren't allowed to own theaters anymore. Beer companies aren't allowed to own bars anymore. Car manufacturers aren't allowed to own auto dealerships. Most television shows are decoupled from the distributors, which is why you see things like a big extra Sony or CBS Television Distribution logo at the end of a sit-com rerun.
I'm not sure that what's happening with audiobooks rises to the level of the problems we used to have with "tied houses" (bars only allowed to sell a certain brand of beer), or movie company vertical monopolies of the past.
It used to be that breweries would own chains of bars in the United States. Similar to the way you can only buy Exxon gas at an Exxon station. That was made illegal.
> Yeah right, please show me where I can buy Tiger King on DVD? I didn't think so.
Netflix has released dvds for many of its original shows, house of cards, Orange is the new black, stranger things, etc. They haven’t released a dvd for tiger king, but may eventually.
I'm pretty sure Netflix didn't release any of those. If DVDs exist, they are published by the studio who made the show. For example, I just looked at HoC season 1, and it is released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
> How is this any different from series that are exclusive to Netflix?
Netflix is a subscription, but Audible sells things: their subscription provides credits that can be used to purchase audiobooks below list price, but you don’t lose access if you discontinue the subscription.
As this is a purchase-like transaction instead of a broadcast-like transaction, it’s reasonable to assume it should work like other purchases. That includes the right to transfer ownership to someone else, either temporarily (loan) or permanently (gift/sale).
That depends on what you consider a digital purchase. DVDs, CDs, and game cartridges are nothing but physical manifestations of digital data, and everyone was allowed to loan or resell those. Books arguably are, too, and have hundreds of years of established legal precedent.
Why should this newcomer (downloads) be treated differently without specific legislation?
In case of physical manifestations, there is an ownership of the physical medium, and copyright rights are 'subservient' to ownership transfer/loan of mediu through 'first sale' doctrine.
For intangible copyright works (e.g. downloadable software), it is just contract and there is no transfer of ownership.
There is specific legislation that establishes 'first sale' doctrine for intangible software, but not for other copyright works.
The current situation is similar in the US, except for the extra enabling legislation. Copyright law was never intended to completely prevent the secondary market, because nobody envisioned technology that would make ownership transfer impossible without making copies— a consumer would always have an “original” that the author was paid for and could be given away freely.
One major ideological difference between Netflix' 'Tiger King' and the Audible exclusives is that the 'Tiger King' wouldn't exist without Netflix' funding. The Audible exclusives would have; were already written by the time Audible threw money at them.
Yes it would exist because netflix acted merley as the distributer for Eric Goode's docu series which he started filming in 2014. So not so much difference after all.
Time to cite sources, because neither of those sound like they're true? Tiger King would have been made by HBO, or Amazon Video, or etc. (Tiger King was not commissioned by Netflix, it was pitched to Netflix).
Similarly, I'm pretty sure Audible commissions plenty of works rather than only reaching exclusivity agreements about already published works.
My impression is that Audible does explicitly fund some exclusives. This is especially the case for "Audible Originals" which are a sort of gray area between Audible Exclusives and podcasts.
> If you want to have the conversation that there should be laws breaking up creation and distribution and making exclusive distribution illegal, then go ahead
To begin that conservation, briefly, let me propose that the law should say that once annual sales of a media work are less than, for example, 10% of the peak number of annual sales for that work (in any year so far), any exclusivity deal should become void.
How that would apply to media works that are locked to a specific format (i.e. console games) is less clear. Perhaps if you are porting a game from Nintendo to PC, you should have to change all the trademarks, so that any bugs introduced by the port are associated with the PC version rather than reflecting badly on Nintendo.
There would probably also have to be very careful accounting of how much money went into the creation of a media work, so that a fair price could be set for an independent distributor buying the rights to distribute it.
First of all, for books that are entertainment (most fiction), how is this any different from series that are exclusive to Netflix? The answer given by the author is a non-answer, claiming you can "buy DVD's online". Yeah right, please show me where I can buy Tiger King on DVD? I didn't think so.
Second, for books that are more in line with libraries' missions to make information accessible for an educated citizenry, the original print and ebooks are still available, right? And if you have vision impairment, there are also methods for automated screenreading, since most books don't have audiobook versions.
So I don't really see any valid complaint here except "we want to sell things exclusive to other stores" which, yeah, and I'd like to have a billion dollars.
If you want to have the conversation that there should be laws breaking up creation and distribution and making exclusive distribution illegal, then go ahead, but that would shake up everything, a pretty radical change. But if you're not going to go there, then there's no reason why audiobooks shouldn't be exclusive while other things get to be.